Following on from my last customer service post: Using Social Media as part of your Customer Service strategy I’d like to touch on the ways in which social media and customer service work together.
After looking around for a bit, I found this awesome infographic from Social Strand Media on How Social Media Is Changing Customer Service
I found one of the most interesting facts to be the comparison between the Traditional customer service metrics and emerging social support metrics. What it means is that offering customer service via social media channels is becoming expected as part of the customer service experience. It’s no longer just the domain of the up and coming tech company or the global corporation with money to throw at developing online processes.
Currently, incoming customer service requests are overwhelmingly coming via telephone, however incoming requests on eservices such as web, social media and chat are expected to grow by 53% in the next year.
When you look at where the customer service opportunities are coming from, overwhelmingly, they currently come via telephone. Keep in mind though that a whopping 52% of all inbound calls are not resolved in 1 call. Of the rest 29% come in person, via writing etc., 18% via email and 13% via eServices such as web, social media and chat – however that figure is expected to grow by 53% in the next year.
So what does it mean for you? It means that developing customer service models that include online and social is essential, and it means that empowering your staff to be able to offer service in whichever way the customer finds easiest will pay you back as existing customers choose to stay for the service experience, they become brand advocates and new clients opt into your services as they become dissatisfied with companies who cannot embrace the technology.
